The AP says it was blocked from the Oval Office over continuing to use ‘Gulf of Mexico’
By Hadas Gold, CNN
(CNN) — The Associated Press said the White House barred its reporter from Tuesday’s Oval Office executive order signing because of the AP style guidance on using the name Gulf of Mexico versus Gulf of America.
The AP said in a statement it was informed Tuesday that if the news agency did not “align its editorial standards with President Donald Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, AP would be barred from accessing an event in the Oval Office.”
That happened on Tuesday, when an AP reporter was blocked from attending an executive order signing in the Oval Office that turned into a question-and-answer session with Trump and Elon Musk.
“It is alarming that the Trump administration would punish AP for its independent journalism,” AP Executive Editor Julie Pace said in a statement. “Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP’s speech not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment.”
The AP’s guidance on Trump’s order renaming the Gulf of America states that the news service “will refer to it by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen.” The AP said that’s because the gulf has carried the Gulf of Mexico name for “more than 400 years” and that other countries and international bodies do not have to recognize the name change.
That’s not the case for Mount McKinley, whose name Trump changed from its former name of Denali. Because the area of the Alaskan mountain “lies solely in the United States” and Trump had full authority to change the name, the AP said it will use the name Mount McKinley.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The White House Correspondents’ Association called the White House’s action “unacceptable”.
“The White House cannot dictate how news organizations report the news, nor should it penalize working journalists because it is unhappy with their editors’ decisions. The move by the administration to bar a reporter from The Associated Press from an official event open to news coverage today is unacceptable,” WHCA President Eugene Daniels said in a statement.
Trump has a long track record of denying press access to outlets of reporters he dislikes. During the campaign, Trump’s team denied and revoked several reporters’ credentials for election night over critical coverage.
During his first term as president, Trump’s White House revoked then-CNN Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta’s press pass after a contentious press conference. The White House later restored the pass after CNN filed a lawsuit.
This story hasbeen updated with additional context.
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